You might be aware that, Adobe released an Alpha build of Adobe AIR for Linux a couple of days ago. You can read more about the same and download a build from the Adobe Labs website. We had released RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR when this was not available and we claimed that the output (an .air) created using RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR will work on Linux when we release Adobe AIR for Linux. I got a number of queries around that claim, but couldn’t substantiate it then. However, I am happy to announce that you can now download and install Adobe AIR for Linux on a Linux machine and then install any output created using RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR. The best part is you will be amazed to see that the complete experience including installation is exactly similar on all platforms.
Since Adobe RoboHelp is a Windows only product and many of us might not have access to an Apple Mac machine or a Linux machine, I thought I must share my experience of installing an .air file created using RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR on all the three platforms - Win, Mac and Linux.
So what I did is, I picked up the “Customer Care” sample project that we ship with Adobe RoboHelp and packaged its WebHelp output to a .air file and then installed the same on a Microsoft Windows XP machine, an Apple Mac machine and a Linux machine. As you all know an .air file has to be installed. The installation experience was same and the output (Help) looked exactly same on all three platforms. Here are the images – see it for yourself.
Figure 1: Customer Care on Microsoft Windows (Larger Image)
Figure 2: Customer Care on Apple Mac (Larger Image)
Figure 3: Customer Care on Linux (Larger Image)
This is now shaping up as a true cross platform solution and I am happy that Adobe RoboHelp is enabling this.
- Akshay
